This unaltered story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.org. License [2]: Creative Commons 4.0 - Attributions/No Derivities/Int'l. ------------------------ Post-war distrust complicates new Armenia-Turkey talks By: [] Date: 2022-01 After decades of closed borders and no diplomatic ties, Turkey and Armenia recently unveiled a new dialogue process. Special envoys appointed by the two sides are expected to hold their first meeting in Moscow on 14 January. For around 30 years, borders between the two countries have been closed. Turkey sealed its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Now, having assisted Azerbaijan in militarily defeating Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh in the 2020 war, Turkey appears confident and eager to propel the talks, driven by its broader regional aspirations and the need for a positive agenda item. But Armenia’s stance is rather ambivalent. Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan during the war has left Armenian society with an increased sense of vulnerability and mistrust towards its eastern neighbour — a fact that could impact the current talks. A previous attempt at a rapprochement process in 2008-09 came to nothing, and Turkey largely returned to its ‘absent’ or, at best, ‘distant’ status in the minds and geopolitical imaginations of average Armenians. As my research conversations suggest, until 2020, Turkey held the position of a historical enemy in Armenia – and was rarely perceived as an actual contemporary threat. Get our free Daily Email Get one whole story, direct to your inbox every weekday. Sign up now I asked Armenian historian Hrant Ter-Abrahamyan, who often comments on Armenian-Turkish relations, to think back to the time before the 2020 war. Did he expect Turkey to intervene to the extent it did? Had he considered Turkey a real threat to Armenia? “To be honest, I did not,” he said. “I was in a state of inertia in that regard, as was most of our society. Turkey remained a mythical figure for us, with no real relations at all. It wasn’t a ‘living’ thing.” The ‘mythical figure’ mentioned by Ter-Abrahamyan is a reference to Turkey's role in the 1915-1923 Armenian Genocide, which was carried out by the Young Turks’ Ottoman government and is still denied by the Turkish state today. But the recent war over Nagorno-Karabakh brought Turkey closer to contemporary Armenians, who encountered the ‘historical enemy’ in a more direct and real way than ever. Turkish military advisers helped coordinate and consult Azerbaijani military during the latter’s offensive in and around Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkish drones were used to deadly effect against Armenian forces, and Syrian mercenaries traveled via Turkey to Azerbaijan to fight on the latter’s side. As Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu put it, the country supported Azerbaijan both “on the battlefield, and at the negotiation table”. Turkey’s active participation in the war even revived memories of the genocide in Armenian society. Politicians, media commentators and people on social media made explicit links with it. “Turkey has returned to the South Caucasus to continue the Armenian Genocide,” Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan said a few days after the start of the war. Speaking at a victory parade in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, in December 2020, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan praised one of the Genocide’s main organisers, Enver Pasha, further inflaming this discourse on the Armenian side. [END] [1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/distrust-complicates-new-armenia-turkey-talks-2021/ [2] url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/ OpenDemocracy via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/opendemocracy/